Sally Quinn Wants Obama to Wear God, Has Gone Mad

Most Read

The continued authorship of something called "On Faith" by Beltway social-climber and Hall of Fame trophy wife Sally Quinn remains the most hilarious thing about The Washington Post, a once-great newspaper now d/b/a an adjunct to the educational testing institute. In her dotage, Sal has become a spiritual explorer, a religious quester, and a thoroughgoing loon. Reading her stuff is like showing up at Lourdes and finding Bernadette Soubirous standing there, dressed in Prada, chilling the champagne and offering the Blessed Mother a couple of seats at the owner's box at the next Redskins game.

Anyway, she seems to have been transported to something resembling ecstasy by the fact that Willard Romney took time out from stomping on the Ninth Commandment the other night long enough to mention a certain Deity, although not by name....

This is a religious country. Part of claiming your citizenship is claiming a belief in God, even if you are not Christian.. We've got the Creator in our Declaration of Independence. We've got "In God We Trust" on our coins. We've got "one nation under God" in our Pledge of Allegiance. And we say prayers in the Senate and the House of Representatives to God.

And, in the Beyond, Mr. Madison cracks another bottle of Madeira and drinks it down in two swallows. A belief in God has nothing to do with "claiming your citizenship." And, not for nothing, but Willard Romney's god happens to believe that Jesus came to America to smoke dope with the Iroquois.

Now it's God. The Republicans have claimed God as their own this entire campaign, each candidate trying to out-Christian the other. Even Obama, though 17 percent of registered voters think he is a Muslim, has talked about being a Christian as often as he can. Still, none of Obama's references have been in a debate. And there was Obama — grim faced, nervous, fumbling his words and wearing his American flag pin — letting Romney, confident and aggressive and in control, roll right over him at every turn. But the God thing clinched it. If Obama wants to win the next debate, he needs to wear God, as much as it offends him to do so, the same way he captured the flag for this one.

"He needs to wear God"? Apparently, the president stands no chance unless he becomes the Buffalo Bill of public Christianism. ("It says the prayers or it gets the hose.") I tried on Quinn's conception of God once, and I found Him a little tight in the crotch.